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Can't believe this
NEW YORK -- An estimated 21.6 million people watched Belgium knock out the United States in the World Cup on U.S. television -- an impressive total for a weekday afternoon that almost certainly undercounts how many people actually saw it.
The Nielsen company said Wednesday that 16.5 million people watched the game on ESPN, with 5.1 million more seeing it on the Spanish-language Univision network. In addition, nearly 1.7 million people watched an online stream of the event, Nielsen said.
- Torre: Hey America, where are you going?
The record U.S. television audience for soccer is the 24.7 million who saw the United States play Portugal on June 24, which tied the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands.
The Portugal game took place on a weekend, however, when there were more people with free time available to watch. The U.S.-Belgium game started at 4 p.m. on the East Coast, earlier in other time zones, during a working day.
Nielsen does not measure viewership in bars, offices or other public places. In 2010, ESPN estimated that the stated audience size for weekday World Cup games would increase by 23 percent if public viewing were taken into account.
Still, Tuesday's knockout game exceeded the average viewership for the most recent World Series and NBA Finals, events that took place during prime-time when more people were home to watch.
The just-concluded NBA Finals where the San Antonio Spurs beat the Miami Heat averaged 15.5 million viewers, with 18 million watching the final game. Last fall's World Series averaged 14.9 million viewers, with 19.2 million watching the Boston Red Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the last game.
The TV ratings for the U.S.-Belgium World Cup match do not include the 28,000 people who watched at Soldier Field in Chicago.U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann said on Wednesday that everyone connected with the soccer team is excited to see how the sport is reaching a U.S. audience. He could see it coming, given the popularity of the game among young people and the large crowds that turned out for the team's sendoff games before the World Cup.
"Soccer is breaking through and gets its deserved recognition without taking anything away from the other big American sports," Klinsmann said.
He said it's important for people to identify with the way Americans played the game.
"The energy and the commitment and the tempo and the aggressiveness that we played with kind of made people proud at home and surprised a lot of people outside of the United States, maybe in Brazil or in Europe," he said.
The highest overall ratings for the U.S.-Belgium game came in New York, Nielsen said.
ESPN said that overall viewership for the World Cup is up 44 percent over 2010.
http://www.espnfc.us/united-states/s...finals-average
Can't believe this
Day drinking.
Meh.
Dont more people watch WWE Raw or Smackdown than the NBA finals? This is why the NBA relies so heavily on story lines to carry them unlike the NFL. They dont have the luxury of slacking off
lol no. WWE on average only has like 4 million viewers a week.
The pro bowl gets better ratings too
Curiosity, bro.
Nah, about 12 million watched that.
poorball more watched even in America
LOL that would be hilarious.
Don't care if Soccer gets higher ratings than the NBA. I don't care if the NBA has the lowest ratings out of all professional sports in America. Basketball is my favorite sport to watch and play and I will always watch it regardless of its popularity.
What's the ratings like for s on Ice?
The Finals have pretty much drawn even with the World Series since the latter goes so far into the football season now.
NBA Finals and World Series are best of 7 series. If either were single elimination games, like the World Cup knockout round, ratings would likely be significantly higher.
International compe ion tbh. Like the Olympics, everyone becomes a fan. Lets see some MLS TV ratings.
The World Cup happens every four years. Go figure.
Soccer is the most popular youth sport in America, played by millions of children. They usually abandon it when they're able to play football, basketball, baseball etc.
Imagine if the games aired at prime time on a Weekend
The ratings would rival the Super Bowl
Well duh. Most of America doesn't give a about a team from Miami playing a team from Northern Mexico. Plus ESPN/ABC literally fired every bullet in the chamber hyping up team USA. For about 2 hours after the game the pundits basically discussed the movie Rocky with Tim Howard as Stallone, you would never know the US lost much more convincingly than 4 years ago in the same round.
isn't it backwards? soccer is most "grouply" watched sport, so ratings actually underestimate more than any other sport how many people watched it, it should be much higher
It's not surprising, it's the World Cup, it happens every 4 years, the US team was actually pretty good, and unlike the American sports leagues where fans cheer for an individual team, the World Cup matchups allow the entire country to join together and cheer for the same team..
NBA's ratings have been really good for the past few years after being fairly bad for most of the 2000s, but they'll never compete with a massive event like the World Cup or the Super Bowl, obviously..
When the US gets its soccer Tiger Woods it will be game over.
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